Should new Mac and PC buyers spend the extra money for that lucky number seven?

Apple unleashed a pile of new Mac hardware on its users Tuesday: new 13" Retina MacBook Pros and Mac Minis using Intel's newest Ivy Bridge processors are available for shipping now, while substantially redesigned iMacs begin shipping in November and December. If you like to upgrade when things are new, now is the time to strike.

Any new computer is an investment, though, and you'll want to make sure that what you're buying will last for as long as possible. For each of the new Macs Apple began selling yesterday, the company offers a $200 upgrade option that will turn your Core i5 processor into a Core i7 processor (and while it hasn't started selling the new iMacs yet, those computers should have a similar upgrade path). If you're in the market for a new Mac (or any computer, really), do these CPU upgrades give you a good bang for your upgrade buck?

What's in a number? Well, it depends...

So what's the difference between a Core i5 and a Core i7? Well, thanks to Intel, the answer isn't simple.

The iMacs use desktop-class processors rather than the mobile processors used by the MacBook Pros and Mac Minis, which makes things a bit easier: a Core i7 upgrade will get you more processor cache, more clock speed, and Hyper-threading. There is no Core i5 desktop processor with Hyper-threading and there is only one seldom-seen Core i5 desktop chip with only two cores (the low power i5-3470T), which draws a mostly clear line between the Core i5 and Core i7 product lines—on the desktop, dual-core CPUs are a market segment left to the Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron chips. There are some oddities and variations within these product families, but in general it's easy enough figure out what's what.

It would be all too easy if Intel's mobile lineup followed the same rules as the desktop chips, but they don't: Mobile Core i5 processors are all dual-core parts with Hyper-threading, rather than quad-core parts. Mobile Core i7 processors can be quad-core chips—as they are in the $799 Mac Mini—but they can also be dual-core CPUs with Hyper-threading enabled, making them much less of an upgrade over their mobile Core i5 counterparts. These dual-core i5 and i7 chips also share other marquee features—the most important is probably Turbo Boost, which can greatly increase the speed of processor cores if your computer isn't using all of them at once. Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron processors in both desktops and laptops lack this feature, but all of the i5s and i7s have it.

Since the processors used by the new 13" Retina MacBook Pros are all dual-core chips, when you spend the $200 to upgrade to an i7 CPU, all you're really getting is a little extra clock speed and a little extra cache, which makes much less of a performance difference than the upgraded Mini's two extra cores.

Do you need to spend the cash?

The answer to that question varies depending on what kind of Core i7 processor we're talking about. If you're jumping from two cores to four (as you do in the Mac Mini), you'll probably be happy if you spend the cash. Apple doesn't list Intel's CPU model numbers, but if you're buying from another manufacturer you can usually tell the difference by seeing whether the processor has a Q (for quad-core) in its name (i.e., the Core i7-3610QM). If you're simply getting a slight clock-speed bump and maybe Hyper-threading out of the deal, as is the case in the new iMacs and the 13" Retina MacBook Pro, your money is going to be best spent elsewhere unless you regularly do very CPU-heavy tasks like video editing and transcoding or very heavy Photoshop work, and the minutes and seconds you'll save with a marginally faster CPU are important to you.

For most general-use workloads—browsing the Web, word processing, checking e-mail, infrequent or light Photoshop or Premiere usage, and even gaming—most applications simply don't use more power than is afforded by a modern Ivy Bridge CPU most of the time, especially if we're talking about the quad-core models already shipping with every iMac. Most of the time, that $200 CPU you bought is going to be sitting idle, something that can be done just as capably by slower, cheaper chips.

I consider myself a reasonably heavy computer user, and this is what my quad-core processor spends most of its time doing.

If you're looking to upgrade either of those Macs (or any other PC), your money is better spent elsewhere: spending $300 will get you a 256GB SSD in the new MacBook Pro, taking the amount of available space from tight-but-workable to just plain workable (depending on the amount of data you need to store locally, of course). In the new iMacs, the 21" models now come with slow-spinning 5400RPM mechanical hard drives, which is actually a downgrade from the 7200RPM desktop hard drives in the 2011 models—there, your upgrade cash would be better spent on a performance-enhancing SSD or Fusion Drive. Things are even better on the PC side, where prices for SSDs have fallen under a dollar per gigabyte and clearance sales can get you nice, fast, high-capacity drives for even less.

It's not that CPU upgrades are totally without merit, or that there aren't people who would benefit from upgrades to either of these new Macs. However, if your upgrade money is limited, CPU upgrades simply don't provide the best bang for your buck.

Promoted Comments

I had no idea that the i5 vs i7 thing was quite this confusing. The genius that came up with this naming scheme at Intel must have a PhD in marketing

Actually they probably do. Your mistake is in thinking that Intel expect the majority of people to buy the i7! The point of the i7 being there is to give people who have more money something to buy, and to help regular folk buy the i5 because it looks like such a good deal compared to the i7. (See price anchoring for the psychology behind all this.)

The apocryphal story is about how Wendy's noticed their triple burgers weren't selling well, so they removed them from the menu. The net result was the number of doubles sold went down. This is because people generally don't want to buy the cheapest (singles) and fell like the most expensive is profligate (not good value for money) so something in between works well.

The general best practise is to have a range of 3 items which is exactly what Intel has done. Also note how you were comparing the i5 to the i7 and not to something else, so Intel gets to frame the values.

Cache is extremely important. The Celerons of old had none, and they were unbelievably slower than equivalent CPUs with cache.

That was 15 years ago, these days it's not as big of a deal to go from 6MB to 8MB cache.

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Hyperthreading is kind of glossed over in the article, but it literally doubles the threads available. It won't be as big a boost as doubling the cores, but it is still significant.

It doubles the threads, but not the number that can actually be processed. Mostly it just prevents a CPU core from being idle until the OS scheduler can assign it a new thread. The real-world performance boost varied widely and is only about 5-20%.

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RAID0 (or RAID5) can go a long way to improving HDD speed. I couldn't justify the 10x in price to get 1/2 the storage and 20x the performance of SSD when I could buy several HDDs and run them in RAID0 for a fraction of the cost with huge capacities and a marginal difference in performance.

Not really. On top of significantly higher transfer speeds there are things like latency that an SSD simply makes go away. Not to mention RAID 0 is never a good idea for any use case.

158 Reader Comments

If it's a home system in which you're buying a mac and asking questions about hardware? You're already doing things wrong. Why spend $300 for a 256GB SSD when you can spend $150 for that same SSD if you don't get a mac?

the logic here appalls me.

Your question about gaming is also fairly incorrect - while many games are GPU bound, plenty are based on the CPU + motherboard + ram + GPU combination - basically total hardware bandwidth, in order to get good frame rates. If you plan to game at any higher resolution than 1440x900, you're going to need better hardware than is even an option with a mac. Which consider that a 24" monitor which does 1920x1080 is around $150 these days basically insures you need to have a good combo for all of the above.

Agreed, once you're up to an Ivy Bridge i5 a SSD (or that new Fusion drive thing I guess, but that needs testing) will give you much more of that kick in the pants feel than a processor upgrade will. For most uses, IO is the speed limiter rather than the processor.

This article brings up something I've been wanting to see, a CPU comparison guide with a companion usage guide with categories such as Internet, word processing, multimedia, gaming etc., and a cpu list for each. Kind of like the system guides, but CPU only.

My work PC is Core i5 and my HTPC is also Core i5. Both with 4G of RAM. Both are really quite zippy machines, although I do not game on them.

Personally, I'd argue in favour of an i3 for an HTPC. Here in the UK an i5-2320 (3.0Ghz) is about 1.5 times more expensive than an i3-2100 (3.10GHz) and should be able to handle 720p TV and 1080p video playback just fine.

Definitely agree with you on the SSD though. A 64GB Samsung SSD can be had for about £55 (~£88) so it and an i3 will give you vastly better performance for £6 more than an i5 alone.

Honestly, this is such a confused article. It pretends to talk to i5 and i7, but instead uses Mac forced configurations and setups to talk limitations and pro/con. The tagline includes "PC" when the article doesn't say much of substance about it at all.

I found the entire article to be pretty much useless.

The gist of it is this.

Pretty much anything is perfectly fine for office use. Use a i5 if you want to save battery power within the same cpu generation and save money

On a laptop where you are almost guaranteed to be GPU limited, spend the money on the GPU with a midrange i5. SSD for quick load times and ram is so stupid cheap at this point, get 8GB or 16GB.

On a PC, at high resolutions, you are once again GPU limited.

If you have a high end GPU, then get a i7, if not, get an i5.

It's really not that hard. People spending $200+ on a GPU won't need help selecting here.

Which is why I have to ask... what the heck was the point of this article. You say it's about selecting a i5 or i7 and then spend the entire article talking about how Mac setups are weird and then tell people to overspend on bad upgrade decisions (at ridiculous Apple upgrade pricing).

Most of the time, that $200 CPU you bought is going to be sitting idle, something that can be done just as capably by slower, cheaper chips.

Well put.

I've got a Nehalem and a Sandy Bridge, but no Ivy Bridge yet. While I do a bit of video editing, maybe I should reconsider getting an i7 Ivy Bridge when I get to that point. My CPU gadget shows just what you say, idle most of the time. Even games like Red Alert 2 don't use much CPU and I don't have the time or interest to take up the newer games right now.

Another benefit is opting for the lower-end CPUs on the laptops means you will typically see a bit better battery life too.

Not necessarily true. Higher-end CPUs will be sleeping more often and consuming less power than lower-end processors that take more time in a fully powered state to process the same set of instructions.

If it's a home system in which you're buying a mac and asking questions about hardware? You're already doing things wrong. Why spend $300 for a 256GB SSD when you can spend $150 for that same SSD if you don't get a mac?

the logic here appalls me.

So you sit in a BMW dealership yelling at people trying to figure out which options to choose that they are doing it wrong and that they should get a Suzuki? Certainly an interesting way to spend your time, no offense. Unless, of course, you own a Suzuki dealership across the street. Then I totally understand.

The easiest way to tell what a processor is is really just to look it up in a chart on Wikipedia. The charts are actually pretty good.

HOWEVER, the mobile processor naming conventions are really easy. If it ends in QM, it's a quad core. If it ends in U, it's an ultra low voltage. If it ends in just M, it's a plain, dual core, mobile processor. Then there's the lonely XM, the extreme line.

If it's a home system in which you're buying a mac and asking questions about hardware? You're already doing things wrong. Why spend $300 for a 256GB SSD when you can spend $150 for that same SSD if you don't get a mac?

the logic here appalls me.

So you sit in a BMW dealership yelling at people trying to figure out which options to choose that they are doing it wrong and that they should get a Suzuki? Certainly an interesting way to spend your time, no offense. Unless, of course, you own a Suzuki dealership across the street. Then I totally understand.

His anger is not completely unfounded...This is not a BMW-only dealership and in fact there are plenty Suzuki's with the same or equivalent options.

If it's a home system in which you're buying a mac and asking questions about hardware? You're already doing things wrong. Why spend $300 for a 256GB SSD when you can spend $150 for that same SSD if you don't get a mac?

the logic here appalls me.

So you sit in a BMW dealership yelling at people trying to figure out which options to choose that they are doing it wrong and that they should get a Suzuki? Certainly an interesting way to spend your time, no offense. Unless, of course, you own a Suzuki dealership across the street. Then I totally understand.

Again with the car analogies! If you want to fix up that analogy, it would be more like sitting in a BMW dealership saying they are doing it wrong and they should get a Suzuki which is actually a BMW with similar specs at a lower price and but doesn't sport the BMW logo.

There is no Core i5 desktop processor with Hyper-threading and there are also no Core i5 desktop chips with only two cores

What about the Core i5-3470T desktop processor, with 2 cores and Hyper-threading technology.

So now I wonder, it this article about Intel products or Apple products?

Good call on the i5-3470T, which as a low-power processor is a bit of an odd duck. I'll tweak.

Geez, Intel.

Intel aren't the only ones with confusing naming schemes, the worse one i ever saw was nVidia's GT555m which differed down to the amount of cuda cores came in GDDR5/GDDR3 variants, you had 4 or 5 totally different beasts called the GT555m.

Back on topic, for desktop CPUs, unless you do something very CPU intensive and the time it takes is important, the i5 is the sensible choice.

For laptops, it isn't as clear cut. At least with ivy bridge, the clock speed differences aren't too staggering between the i5 and i7 quads. When the first gen of mobile core i CPUs launched, the lower end i7s like the i7-720qm were severely lacking in single and dual threaded performance compared of the higher end i5s and the i7-620m.

As for gaming, very few games make use of a quad core, but if you plan on playing Guild Wars 2, civilization 5 or Shogun 2, get a quad core without a doubt if you plan on going with a laptop.

Which is why I have to ask... what the heck was the point of this article. You say it's about selecting a i5 or i7 and then spend the entire article talking about how Mac setups are weird and then tell people to overspend on bad upgrade decisions (at ridiculous Apple upgrade pricing).

I don't think it's the article that has problems but your logic and reading capability (probably influenced by bias). Take it easy, it's just a post that says that if you don't make heavy video or photo editing an ssd is a better upgrade than a i7, not everyone knows that, so it can be useful, just not to you.

Honestly, this is such a confused article. It pretends to talk to i5 and i7, but instead uses Mac forced configurations and setups to talk limitations and pro/con. The tagline includes "PC" when the article doesn't say much of substance about it at all.

It looked pretty clear to me.

If you're building or buying a PC, the temptation is to go for the top-of-the-line options, which add to the cost fairly significantly even if they have a questionable benefit.

The article uses Apple's lineup to explore the topic.

I find it harder to understand the viewpoint of people like yourself, who seem confused by the mention of Apple. If it helps, mentally substitute the brand "Dell" and change a few model names, and you'll probably feel right at home.

I had no idea that the i5 vs i7 thing was quite this confusing. The genius that came up with this naming scheme at Intel must have a PhD in marketing

Actually they probably do. Your mistake is in thinking that Intel expect the majority of people to buy the i7! The point of the i7 being there is to give people who have more money something to buy, and to help regular folk buy the i5 because it looks like such a good deal compared to the i7. (See price anchoring for the psychology behind all this.)

The apocryphal story is about how Wendy's noticed their triple burgers weren't selling well, so they removed them from the menu. The net result was the number of doubles sold went down. This is because people generally don't want to buy the cheapest (singles) and fell like the most expensive is profligate (not good value for money) so something in between works well.

The general best practise is to have a range of 3 items which is exactly what Intel has done. Also note how you were comparing the i5 to the i7 and not to something else, so Intel gets to frame the values.

My work PC is Core i5 and my HTPC is also Core i5. Both with 4G of RAM. Both are really quite zippy machines, although I do not game on them.

Personally, I'd argue in favour of an i3 for an HTPC. Here in the UK an i5-2320 (3.0Ghz) is about 1.5 times more expensive than an i3-2100 (3.10GHz) and should be able to handle 720p TV and 1080p video playback just fine.

Definitely agree with you on the SSD though. A 64GB Samsung SSD can be had for about £55 (~£88) so it and an i3 will give you vastly better performance for £6 more than an i5 alone.

I built a HTPC early this year before Ivy Bridge hit, and I ended up going with a Sandy Bridge Celeron (G540). Coupled with a small SSD for the system stuff, an spare TB hard drive for storage, and a low-profile AMD HD6570 graphics card it works wonderfully. Even plays most games on low-to-medium settings.

If it's a home system in which you're buying a mac and asking questions about hardware? You're already doing things wrong. Why spend $300 for a 256GB SSD when you can spend $150 for that same SSD if you don't get a mac?

the logic here appalls me.

So you sit in a BMW dealership yelling at people trying to figure out which options to choose that they are doing it wrong and that they should get a Suzuki? Certainly an interesting way to spend your time, no offense. Unless, of course, you own a Suzuki dealership across the street. Then I totally understand.

Again with the car analogies! If you want to fix up that analogy, it would be more like sitting in a BMW dealership saying they are doing it wrong and they should get a Suzuki which is actually a BMW with similar specs at a lower price and but doesn't sport the BMW logo.

Car analogies.

If you want to fix that analogy up, you should consider that OS X is only licensed to run on hardware sold by Apple, and while you may not care for that operating system much, some of us like it just fine, thank you. You can't say that this is all about the chips on the boards being found in other systems: the hardware is only one aspect of the machine. The fact that you can buy it elsewhere is irrelevant to the anti-Apple argument.

Higher-end CPUs will be sleeping more often and consuming less power than lower-end processors that take more time in a fully powered state to process the same set of instructions.

As someone who has upgraded from a MacBook Air with a 1.7 Ghz i5 to one with a 2.0 Ghz i7 I can assure you that this theory does not live up in practice. The i7 gets warmer and the MBA gets louder more often. Intel has acknowledged that by labeling the i5 a 17w TDP part and the i7 a 25w TDP part.

I also have to say that I regret this upgrade. The performance hasn't increased in any subjectively quantifiable way, but the more frequent fan-activity bothers me a lot. Battery time seems to have taken a slight hit too, though that can be a subjective assessment.

Another benefit is opting for the lower-end CPUs on the laptops means you will typically see a bit better battery life too.

Not necessarily true. Higher-end CPUs will be sleeping more often and consuming less power than lower-end processors that take more time in a fully powered state to process the same set of instructions.

Maybe in an extreme comparison, like Atom VS i7. But in comparison between similar chips like these, it's always been the case in our experience with in all the Elitebooks and MBPs we've bought in the past 4 or 5 years (about 300).

Now I'm curious if this rundown extends to all of these processors, or just in new Macs. I'm looking at building a gaming rig/HTPC and am stuck on the processor. The cost is only about $70 different. But if it won't do anything for performance, there is no reason.

Now I'm curious if this rundown extends to all of these processors, or just in new Macs. I'm looking at building a gaming rig/HTPC and am stuck on the processor. The cost is only about $70 different. But if it won't do anything for performance, there is no reason.

It extends beyond the examples used. The link about gaming and processors within the article goes into some detail, and has convinced me that an i7 may not be as worthwhile an upgrade as I thought.

My home desktop is an i7-2600 (quad core with hyperthreading) running Windows 7 x64. I've noticed that even with my heaviest normal workload, half of the logical cores are "parked." I can do a virus scan, backup, run 14 or 15 IE tabs, and watch TV simultaneously, without waking up the 4 parked cores. In fact, the only time I've seen all 8 logical cores in operation at the same time is when ripping DVDs with HandBrake, while browsing in IE and watching TV. Ripping is significantly faster with this PC than it was with my old Core2 Duo - too bad I almost never do it.

I like fast hardware and don't mind the cost, but in this case, I'm not at all sure that processor was worth the extra hundred bucks.

I can attest to this being a nightmare for consumers. I bought a 2012 13" MBA and was very pleasantly surprised to find 4 threads because of an HT-enabled (i5 3427U) part. I was expecting a dual-core processor with no HT.To check any previously available macs check the URLs below. They haven't been updated with the new macs yet, but if you look at the details of the old ones you can find a lot of other details that are not immediately obvious from Apple's site.

As for the question of i5 versus i7, just ask yourself this question: Do I need the extra memory bandwidth? If you don't know the answer to that question you probably do not need an i7.

That's not a good question to ask; the i5 and i7 have the exact same memory controller and bandwidth.

It's pretty clear; people need to know how well threaded their workload is and take it from there. However, the article doesn't do a good job explaining that. It cites "heavy photoshop" as one decision point, which I find questionable. Looking at CS6, OpenCL seems to be more performance bearing and depends on the GPU in that area, not the CPU. For a lot of work at least in CS5, HT doesn't make any difference. So again, it's being aware of what filters are used and which ones benefit.

The only worthwhile thing explained is that some i7 CPUs are actually dual core plus HT.